The author says Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman’s turn as UNGA president (“a UN that delivers for all”) should be tested by how Dhaka treats Indigenous communities at home. The constitution names “tribes, minor races…” rather than “Indigenous peoples.”

The Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord (1997) is still disputed: the government says most of it is done; the PCJSS says land and regional powers are not. UN bodies have alleged land grabs and violence—claims the piece says must be investigated, not assumed proven. Plains groups (Santal, Rakhine, and others) face similar land and culture fights.

Rahman cannot rewrite the constitution from New York. The argument is credibility: listen, settle land fairly, implement the Accord, and let communities define themselves—without treating Bangladeshi citizenship and Indigenous identity as opposites.

As Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman begins his term as President of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, a long-running issue deserves renewed international attention: Indigenous rights in Bangladesh. Rahman has taken one of the world’s most visible diplomatic chairs under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All.” For Bangladesh, those words raise an uncomfortable question: if the United Nations is to deliver for all, who is included in that “all” at home?

Rahman’s election is a genuine diplomatic achievement. He brings decades of experience with the United Nations to an office that presides over the General Assembly’s 193 member states. Bangladesh has every reason to take pride in seeing one of its diplomats occupy such a prominent international position.

But international leadership also invites scrutiny at home. At the same moment Bangladesh is speaking from the UN about trust, inclusion, dignity and human rights, Indigenous communities within the country continue to raise unresolved concerns about identity, ancestral land, cultural survival, political participation and security.

The controversy is sometimes reduced to the statement that Bangladesh says there are no Indigenous peoples. The reality requires more precise language. Bangladesh recognizes distinct ethnic communities, but Article 23A of the Constitution refers to “tribes, minor races, ethnic sects and communities” rather than recognizing them under the designation “Indigenous peoples.”

For the communities concerned, however, this is not simply a dispute over one word. Indigenous peoples live not only in the Chittagong Hill Tracts but also across the plains, forests and coastal regions of Bangladesh. Their histories and circumstances differ, yet many have raised concerns about land loss, cultural survival, representation and the right to define their own identity.

This is not only a Chittagong Hill Tracts issue. It is a Bangladesh issue.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts remains the most politically visible part of the story because of its history of armed conflict and the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord. The agreement was intended to replace decades of confrontation with a political settlement and addressed questions of regional........

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